


Death in the Family

by UnsubstantiatedAssertion



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Can't Describe Much Without Spoiling, Gen, Sad, Sad with a happy-ish ending, Short One Shot, not what it seems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-22 23:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20000533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnsubstantiatedAssertion/pseuds/UnsubstantiatedAssertion
Summary: After the funeral, Sarai comforts Callum about the loss they have just shared.





	Death in the Family

**Author's Note:**

> Having just played the very sad but very sweet RPG "To the Moon," I was inspired to write something sad after having only done silly comedy homages and fluff so far.

Sarai ran her hands through her brown hair and splashed some water on her face. She had spent the morning crying, as she imagined most who attended yesterday's funeral had. The illness had come so suddenly and progressed so fast. She had the morning to herself, but now had to put on a brave face and deal with another issue. Amaya had told her that no one had seen Callum since the funeral and they were beginning to get worried. At his age, a death like this would hit especially hard. Sarai felt like her heart had been torn open and yet she still couldn't imagine how Callum must be feeling. 

Both she and Amaya had a good idea where Callum had gone to. 

_You should speak with him first_ , Amaya had signed. _Bring him inside._

* * *

Now she was almost at the cemetery. She came up over a small hill and saw exactly what she expected to find: Callum standing statue-still in front of the freshly dug grave. Her boots squelched on the ground as she approached him. It was a dreary mid morning where it either had just finished raining or was about to start. While Sarai didn't try to mask her presence, Callum seemed not to notice her coming up behind him. She stopped at about an arm's length away. Startling him was the last thing Sarai would want to do.

"Hi, Da'."

Callum forced himself to look away from the grave and face Sarai. She had his hair, his eyes, his pinkies, and her ears were somewhere in-between rounded and pointy, but otherwise she looked like a near perfect replica of Rayla. It was the last thing he needed to see right now. 

"Elves live longer than humans." Callum looked down, at the ground, his cane, anywhere but Sarai's face. "I was always supposed to go first. I'd made peace with it."

His inability to look her in the eye stung, but Sarai understood. _Doesn't look like you're too far off_ , she thought and instantly hated herself for doing so. That didn't stop it from being the truth. Her father was pretty old, and he looked to have aged another decade this past week. She tried to think of something happier to say rather than let her previous idea bubble to the surface as they were want to do.

"I think," the words tumbled out of her mouth, "that maybe mum would have liked it this way." What was she saying? "You'll see her a lot sooner than she would be waiting for you." Sarai wanted to bury her face in her palms.

Before she could, Callum lifted his head to meet her gaze. He smiled. "Maybe you're right." 

Callum stepped away from Rayla's grave. "You always know the right wrong thing to say. Never stop, Moonsky."

Normally she would playfully object to the use of her childhood nickname, but today Sarai relished hearing it. She hooked her elbow with Callum's to help walk him back to the castle. 

"C'mon. We need to get you inside before it starts raining and you catch a cold."

"You say that like its a bad thing."

Sarai glared at him.

"I'm kidding. I'm not planning on going anywhere just yet."

"Good. There's still a lot of people who need you. Uncle Ezran, Great Aunt Amaya. 'Course the kids need you most of all. Taima and Morril just lost one grandparent, I won't let them loose another. And me. I still need you too."

"I said, I'm not going anywhere." They reached the entrance to the castle. 

He was right. Callum lived to be a hundred and two. 

So much for humans having sub-century lifespans. 

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise twist! I wanted to play with some conventions I've seen like the idea of a Rayllum child named after Sarai or the issue of human versus elf life spans and flip them around to make something unexpected. Hopefully it worked and it wasn't super predictable. 
> 
> Fun fact: Sarai's children/Callum and Rayla's grandchildren are named after a character from To The Moon (Taima) and... just a random name I made up (Morril).


End file.
